We will live on
by Allicat9
Summary: The lives of the Black family outcasts in thier own words-please R&R
1. Chapter 1 And so we Ran

AND SO WE FLED- October 12th 1900

And so we fled. Away from the screaming, away from the accusations-sprinting off across the gardens, dodging curses as we went. Suzanna was crying, gasping for breath, begging me to _Slow down! Just slow down Phineas, I can't breathe!_ But I knew we couldn't stop. Not yet. Not while we could still hear them. We had to get outside the manor's wall, once we were there, we could disparate. Suzanna hated apperating, but in our current predicament, she would have to get over it. 

I could hear their footsteps behind us and pulled her along faster. She stumbled, and a stunning spell flew over her head, missing her by inches. I was glad that at least they were not aiming to kill.

_"Impedimenta!"_ I aimed the curse blindly over my shoulder, not caring if it hit one of them, in fact hoping that it wouldn't. I just needed them to slow down.

"Stop, Phineas!" I heard my brother shout, and I almost laughed, because, really, did Sirius expect me to stop now? Now, when I was so close to freedom? Now, when just moment before him and my brother had nearly killed Suzanna and me in my parent's kitchen?

We rounded the corner and headed for the gate, ducking the hailstorm of jinx's my brother's were firing at us. The gate was still open, an oversight on Cygnus' part, one that I had counted on. He always forgot. No matter what mother said to him-I almost smiled at the thought.

"Phineas, please, wait!" It was Cygnus this time, his voice horse from lack of oxygen. I merely scoffed and pushed my legs harder, _faster_.

And then we were free, bursting though the gate and out onto the cobblestone road. I swept Suzanna up into my arms before turning on the spot. The last glimpse I had of my former life was of my brother's faces-Sirius furious, Cygnus stricken, as Suzanna and I vanished into nothingness.


	2. Chapter 2 And so we Hid

AND SO WE HID- June 12th 1871

I was never going to see my home again. I was never going to have the wedding I had always wanted. After today, I would no longer be the youngest daughter of Cygnus and Donatella Black. After today, my brothers would hate me, my sister would never speak to me again, and any relative I passed on the street would hiss as I walked by. And I couldn't bring myself to care.

I was going to marry him. I was going to do it, and no one could stop me. I didn't know who needed more convincing, my family or myself. I was in love. When one is in love, one marries that person. And so, I, Isla Pavia Black, was going to marry Robert Andrew Hitchens, a muggle.

We'd met when we were children. My brother, Sirius had taken my siblings and me to the park. I was four at the time, Elladora was five, Phineas was seven and Sirius was just nine. He was my favorite sibling. I think he was everyone's favorite sibling. Even my parents loved him best. It was hard not too. He was the brightest, the most talented. He had inherited all of the Black family looks and all of their fire. But for all that, he was the kindest, the most understanding. Whenever I had a scratch or bruise, it was to Sirius that I would run. We had a bond, him and me, one that neither Elladora nor Phineas had or understood.

So it was his hand that I held as we walked to the park. Elladora and Phineas ran off as soon as we got there. Sirius and I wandered over to the benches near where some young muggle children around my age were playing. I remember watching them hungrily-yearning to join them. I had never played with children my age before that were not my siblings.

As was his way, Sirius took notice of my glum expression.

"What's the matter Is?" I remember him leaning down so he could look me in the eye, "Why are you so sad?"

"I want to play." I answered, pointing my chubby little hand towards the muggle children.

Sirius bit his lip as he considered the children before us, and then glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh, go on then." He grinned, releasing my hand, "I won't tell."

I waddled towards the muggles on my barley stable legs, running headlong into a little boy a year or two older then me who laughed as he pulled me to my feet and said his name was Bobby.

That was one of the best days of my young life. I still remember it clearly, even to this day. And Sirius, he never _did_ tell.

After Sirius died, Bobby became my best friend. Sirius and I would sneak out to see the muggle children at the park, because I loved to go, but Sirius would never play with us. It was just our secret, where we went for those few, stolen hours. But when my brother had his accident, I had to go on my own.

Bobby was my special friend. No one in my family knew about him. Even though he was just a muggle, there was something, well, magical about the boy. He was always a laugh, for one. In my house, laughter was a rare occurrence, especially after Sirius. Mother always cried and father was always stern. Phineas and Ella were closer then ever and treated me badly. Well, not so much Phin, but Ella was horrible. She had never been quite as pretty as I was, and that was always a sore spot for her. I was glad when they went off to Hogwarts. I was thrilled to have the manor to myself.

Well, myself and Bobby that is.

As soon as my parents would leave for work, I would sneak out of the house and go unlock the garden gate. Then Bobby and I would play in the miles of enchanted garden mazes that surrounded my home and he would tell me such extraordinary things, like how there was no such things as fairies in his world, and that not one person could levitate their chairs in his class. His world was so very different from mine, and I wanted to experience it.

When I left for Hogwarts, I promised to write to him everyday. And I did, for a while. But I had been sorted into Slytherin. And the first thing you learn in Slytherin house is that different is wrong. I knew that muggles were bad of course. Mother and Father had taught me that from a very young age. But I had never thought of Bobby in that way. I hadn't seen him as a filth that needed to be eliminated from the world. But then I did. And I stopped writing to my secret friend and threw myself into pureblood society with an intensity previously unreached, as if making up for all the time I had ignored the most basic of pureblood codes.

But, after a while, the parties started to bore me, the food had lost it's taste, all the extravagance began to look garish, and my many suitors seemed shallow copies of one another. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I had everything a pure blood princess could have wanted, and yet, I was unhappy.

It was not until I returned to my home the summer of my sixth year that I discovered the answer. I met Bobby again, though this time it was Robert and he was offering me a place under his umbrella, though I could have summoned my own. Some may think there's not much of a difference between Bobby and Robert, but there is.

I fell in love with him. It's as simple as that. And when I could no longer stand pretending to be something I wasn't in my own home, I ran away under the cover of darkness. We hid far away in a tiny little muggle village where my family would never find us and raised seven children that were more magical then anything in my old life had ever been. And I was happy.


	3. Chapter 3 And so I Faded

**AND SO I FADED –July 16th 1924**

I was a good child. At least, I think I was. I was quiet, I was polite. I only spoke when I was spoken too. I only ate what I was supposed to eat. I swallowed every single ludicrous opinion that my parents had without question and regurgitated them at every single party we ever had- just like any good little pureblood child would do. For God's sake, I even looked the part! I was more Black then any one of my siblings. I had the _fire_ my grandfather always said. Well, he used to say. That was well before they knew what I was.

You see, the one thing I could never do was the one thing I had to do above all else to earn my parent's affection. I did not have a single drop of magical blood in my veins, and everyone knew it.

I was six when they started tossing that word around. Squib. Such a horrid word isn't it? It made me feel dirty and slimy and unworthy every time I heard it. Of course I never heard it in my own home. My parents refused to believe such 'nonsense' as my mother called it.

"You are just a late bloomer Marius." She would coo, brushing my hair out of my eyes, "Just you wait, you'll be the most powerful of all."

But that never happened. When my eleventh birthday came and went with no sign of a letter, you could hear a pin drop in the house. Finally my parents were forced to accept what I had feared since the age of seven. I was a squib.

They shut me out; it's as simple as that. My mother, who had always favored me before, couldn't bear to look at me. My father was openly hostile, cuffing me for so much as daring to look at him. Pollax delighted in my misery and was horribly cruel to me whenever he got the chance to be. My sisters were my only salvation. Dorena was the baby of the family and convinced father to let me bring muggle mathematics books in the house so I could study. Whenever father locked me in my room for days at a time, Cassiopeia snuck me my meals.

They loved me, my sisters. I know they did. But even they didn't know how to deal with me. I wasn't allowed to go to muggle school. Father wouldn't hear of it. Mostly I just stayed in the house, cooking or cleaning, trying to be of some use. I just faded into the background, slowly, so slowly even I didn't notice, until one day I simply walked out of the front door with my small suitcase and I don't think my parents even realized.

I bought a tiny flat. Worked for a tiny wage. And lived, for all intensive purposes, a very tiny life. You see, I could never let go of the life I could have had and was so busy pining after that dream that I never noticed I was fading into nothing.


	4. Chapter 4- And so I was Silent

**AND SO I WAS SILENT** –** April 23****rd**** 1977**

I am a different sort of Black, I've realized. Not the common one, but the sort that comes around every few years or so. It's a lonely type to be, we are so uncommon you see, but I wouldn't trade my place for all the gold in the Black family vault.

It gives you perspective, this loneliness. I can see that my family is the very worst sort of wrong-the kind of wrong that is convinced of its own rightness. It's both terrifying and fascinating in one. Terrifying because I am sure that it would take but a spark to set my family ablaze with hatred; forcing them to action. Fascinating because it _would_ only take a spark to melt the icy exterior they believe is unshakeable.

Madness has always run in the Black blood. I am no exception. My family suffers from a collective neurosis, we lucky few escape it but succumb to the madness in other ways. We are mad, mad for breaking away, when nothing we have been told should allow us to do so. We are too similar to them to be without them, their teachings are to ingrained within us for us to function normally-it goes against our best interest to break away-yet we do.

Or should I say they do. I watch them, God bless them, as they struggle with their decisions. I was not strong enough to break away completely. Only my mind is free, my body, my soul, is still inked in Black. I love them too much to ever let them go, I think. I fear myself too much to ever really leave.

But the younger one's, they may have a chance. Andromeda's choice, I think was easier-she fell in love. Sirius, I think, will feel the madness more. He feels too deeply and, despite what he says, he loves his family.

I pray that one day he risks the madness and speaks his mind, for that day he will truly know freedom. When that opportunity presented itself to me, when I saw injustice and malice and prejudice, I hesitated.

I thought about the comfortable life I had, the bond I shared with my flesh and blood, how being a Black was as much a part of me as my beating heart-and so I was silent.

Perhaps that is true madness.


	5. Chapter 5 And So I was Alone

**AND SO I WAS ALONE-**September 2nd 1995

I was always the rebel. I don't know why my brother was surprised when I left. Perhaps he thought that I was simply acting out, that I was trying to get mummy's attention. Listen to that. _Mummy_. Walberga Black was never a mummy in her life. She was mother, the bitch, _Her_-but never mummy. I don't think she knew how to be one.

I hate this house. I hate its walls. I hate it's memories. There's where Bella taught me how to stun. There's where Dromeda kissed my knee and told me fairytales. There's where Grandmother made her special pudding. There's where Regulus and I hid to wait for our father to come home and find us.

I hate that I was once happy here and I hate that I left loathing them all. I know that they deserve my distain, most of them. But sometimes, in this house, I wish I wasn't so alone.


End file.
